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The Location and Name 
of the Mormon Trail 



BY 



Edgar R. Harlan 

CURATOR STATE HISTORICAL 
DEPARTMENT 




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An Address Delivered at Keokuk, Iowa, Otftober 22, 1913, Re- 
printed From the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Confer- 
ence, Iowa D. A. R. 



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The Location and Name 
of the Mormon Trail 



BY 



Edgar R. Harlan 

CURATOR STATE HISTORICAL 
DEPARTMENT 



An Address Delivered at Keokuk, Iowa, Odtober 22, 1913. Re- 
printed From the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Confer- 
ence, Iowa D. A. R. 



The Knoxville Express, Knoxville, Icwa 
1914 






Gift 

Autho- 

OCT 9 /lis 



LcL 16-12^11 



Curator Harlan's important Address Before D. A. R. Meet 

Waterloo Evening Courier, October 21, 1910 

Cedar Falls. Oct. 20. — At S o'clock in the evening- the Congrej^-ational 
church was jjacked to its capacity to hear E. R. Harlan, curator of the 
state historical department, speak on "The Permanent Marking- of His- 
toric Sites." Mr. Harlan never appeared to better advantage on the plat- 
foini; his address was a masterpiece in its placing- before the company 
new and wonderfully interesting manuscripts relating to the early his- 
tory of the state. The address consisted of a review of the custom of 
the commemoration of men and events by the raising of monuments. 

The ancient lessons in art, science and literature, these have preserv- 
ed to the present time; of the benefits growing out of the determination 
of disputed locations of points and places of the happenings of import- 
ance in earlier phases of American and of western history, through the 
inspiration of present students and readers to review and remember the 
truth, and through the perpetual lesson that a monument teaches. Mr. 
Harlan pointed out that the shafts at the graves of nearly every eminent 
Iowa man, whether of military or civil service, have been raised at the 
expense and from the consideration alone of the family or estate, and 
that from the nature of things no epitaph but one of ■brevity is found. 
It is Mr. Harlan's opinion that at or near the grave of each man whom 
the state commissions there should be found, provided by the state it- 
self, a fitting tablet or inscription reflecting the full credit of the career 
implied by the commission born in life. That every soldier -who enlisted 
from this state and who died in his country's service, and lies buried 
elsewhere, should have some permanent tablet commeinorative of his life 
and death in that cemetery in which he would most probably have 
been interred had his death occurred at home; that the boundaries of the 
treaty, territorial and successive constitutional boundai'ies should in 
time be determined and marked; that every event that served as a basis 
for advancement along the line of progress should be celebrated by a 
commemorative shaft. The historic highways across the state should be 
re-located and marked and all sites of scenic or historical interest pre- 
served in natural and unblemished condition. He thought that the ordi- 
nary stone now placed at the grave-sites of our dead will be in existence 
as far distant in the future as the monuments of antiquity in the past. 
They required greater concern for their sculptures and epitaphs than is 
ordinarily given. It was pointed out that the rare genealogical value of 
the New England gravestone of a century ago is lacking in the lettering 
on sepulchral monuments of today, while the mere commemorative 
shafts and tablets placed are far too often without that care of art 
which will make them valuable to the future as are the works of the an- 
cients to the world today. 

Attention was called to the lamentable truth that in the country over 
there is spending vast sums of money and wasting ii-nportant opportun- 
ity through the exercise of judgment of untrained and unsympathetic 
officials upon points of art and ornament, when such exercise of judg- 
ment would not be taken unassisted in fields of law, medicine or other 
technical fields without expert assistance. 



Suggests Use of 01d=Time Travel Way 

Des Moines Daily Capital, November 25, 1910 

Curator Harlan, inoved by the utilization of the old Santa Fe trail — 
through Kansas and Colorado — as part of a transcontinental tourist 
route, believes Iowa in its famous old Mormon trail across the two 
southermost tiers of counties in the state, has a route to which equally 
as great sentiment attaches and which should be perpetuated by per- 
manent markings if not development as one of the greatest dragged 
roads across the state, similar- to the River-to-River road. The Capital 
w^ill use its utinost endeavor in carrying out this project to a successful 
conclusion. 

Good Roads Editor: I would like to suggest that you establish and 
promote a river-to-river road, to be named, and to be located on or ap- 
proximately on what the journals of the "California Ra^vhiders" call the 
"Mormon Trace" or "Ti-ail." I have given some attention to the relative 
popularity of Iowa trails earlier than 1856, and I believe that that road 
was of the most importance. I have found so much of intei-est that I 
have strongly recommended to the Iowa society Daughters of the 
American Revolution to enter into a plan of locating and marking the 
trail at least at its most important points, and the society is seriously 
considering so doing. 

The route was first oi)ened for considerable use by the Mormon emi- 
grants in 1S4<>, and retained the name of "Mormon Trail" after Califor- 
nia, Oregon and later emigrants were thronging it, and Mormons were 
seldom seen. It is still alluded to by that name by the people along its 
course, and sometimes forrns descriptive boundaries in land and other 
records in the counties through which it passes. I cannot imagine a 
more interesting or attiaotive automobile route across Iowa than one 
over this old trail made populai- by its proper marking by the Daughters 
of the American Revolution, and its proper care under the plans you 
Iiave so successfully promoted for highways elsewhere in the state. 
Sentiment in such things maizes it "go" quite as much as othei- influ- 
ences. There is no sentiment in Iowa stronger than patriotism, and I 
would like to help pi'omote the knowledge and pride of Iowa people in 
the records and traditions of the early days. In my judgment the Mor- 
mon Trail in Iowa holds romance unexcelled by the .Santa Fe or any 
other western road. It happens not to have been mentioned by the not- 
ed early travelers as have been others of the famous trails. Sincerely 
vours. " E. R. HARLAN. 



The Location and Name of the Mormon Trail 

By EDGAR R HARLAN 

When the Black Hawk war ended, the Sac and Fox nations found 
themselves obliged to stay away from the Mississippi river. They had 
agreed to come no closer than Keosauqua and Fairfield. The ground 
between here and there was called the Black Hawk Purchase. They 
gave it up in a treaty signed by Winfield Scott and John Reynolds at 
Rock Island, September 21, 1832, eighty-one years ago. Settlements 
soon began, and lands were surveyed in about five years, or in 1837. 
In this latter year the Indians ceded their rights to a million and a 
quarter acres more on their eastern boundary, the middle part of the 
tract being where Johnson county now is, and about as wide as that 
county, then running to a point near the southeast corner of Davis 
county and on the north near the southwest corner of Fayette county. 
At Old Agency in Wapello county on October 11, 1842, Keokuk at the 
head of the Sacs and Pow-a-Shiek at the head of the Foxes touched the 
goosequill to a treaty by which they gave up all the remainder of their 
lands in Iowa. They further agreed that they would move out of their 
camps about Ottumwa and go west of the Red Rocks near Knoxville 
by May 1, 1844, then out of the state a little later. This they did in 
1845 and 1846. 

When the Indians removed beyond Knoxville, or the Red Rocks, set- 
tlements and surveys were made very rapidly, and the entire region 
rapidly took on the appearance of organized life. This last cession was 
heralded far and near. The Red Rock line separated it into "The New 
Purchase," where whites might settle, and "The Indian Country" on 
the west. Fort Des Moines at Raccoon Forks was garrisoned for the 
protection of the Indians from the whites in their part. 

The surveys were completed to the Red Rock line or the meridian of 
Knoxville in 1845, and the notes and maps in their rough form on file 
at Washington and Des Moines are the best evidence now of the loca- 
tion earlier than 1845 of many a settler whose name and service never 
received other note within our state. These notes and maps indicate 
the courses and size and often names of streams and trails. The Dra- 
goon trail from Montrose to Oskaloosa is shown and named. It passes 
through Utica, Birmingham, Libertyville, Agency, Dahlonega and on the 
divide through Oskaloosa and Pella. So that by these maps and notes 
you can easily identify the way of going from settlement to settlement 
throughout the region; you can trace the routes from the Rock river 
and from the mouth of the Des Moines into the Indian country and de- 
termine the location of every ford and mill of the entire time. Our 
region was then part of Michigan, later Wisconsin and last as Iowa ter- 
ritory. 

But while surveys had been about completed out to the Indian coun- 
try, there were, when winter came on in 1845, few settlers as far out 
as Bloomfield, and no surveys beyond Knoxville, where the Indians as 
yet were entitled to be unannoyed. 

It seems the fall and winter weather of 1845 was quite severe. The 
month of January, 1846, was especially so. February hardly let up, 
and only pioneer hardihood and economy served to keep Lee and Van 
Buren counties from actual need. February in Lee county witnessed 
the most awful scenes ever enacted on Iowa soil. The arrival of 
20,000 homeless, almost helpless, souls from Illinois forced over the 
Mississippi into Iowa territory as penalty for the wrongs committed by 
them or in their name by fanatic friends and ferocious foes. 

Commanded by the sovereign will of Illinois to quit that state and 
led to call it an act of God, 20,000 persons crossed the river in one day. 
They numbered 20,005 next morning by reason of the birth of five ba- 



bies the tirst night over. They had no houses of their own and none in 
prospect. Until the February weatlier in all its wretched chill and 
dampness should yield to spring and the great outdoors be for them 
homes roofed by the friendly stars and walled in by the soft southeast- 
ern winds, they expected no convenience. 

Leaderless, homeless, moneyless, 20,000 persons scattered among the 
claims and cabins of the counties of Lee and Van Buren, in their be- 
lief that God would come and care for them. Begging, not for bread 
through charity, but for work for even trivial wages, these 20,000 
pairs of trained hands, directed, as they claimed, by divine providence, 
drove resistless bargains for their skill and labor with the Iowa set- 
tlers. As a result the spring of 1846 in the Des Moines valley above 
Farmington saw more frontier cabin shanties replaced by two-story 
dwellings than has occurred, perhaps, in any like time and area in any 
western state. The same minds and hands that later in tithings 
built a tabernacle and its famous organ wrought for Seth Richards at 
Bentonsport and Dr. Elbert on Indian Prairie. 

The lirst months for the 20,000 served to stretch their line across 
from the Mississippi to the Indian country. But once beyond the Red 
Rock line and with the coming of grass and warmth, a sense of com- 
fort and security succeeded, and while head men were contemplating 
final plans the rank and file at Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah planted 
corn amongst the roots of deadened trees and sat down to wait. 

The 20,000 reached the winter camp in scattered groups and by vari- 
ous ways. But thousands of their converts in the eastern states and 
Europe headed for Nauvoo, followed by different crossings of the Mis- 
sissippi, and finding corn and campsites of the pioneers, replenished 
themselves and followed on. As a result the fall of 1846 and the spring 
of 1847 found an almost constant stream of wagons, carts and people 
from Chariton on to Council Bluffs. The stream was strengthened In 
Cass county by the junction of the trail from Davenport, Iowa City and 
Fort Des Moines, and elsewhere by scarcely less important trails. 

Now, in this latter year, 1847, the Indians having .lust retired to 
Kansas, the surveyor came and prepared the ground for valid titles. 
He began his work at Knoxville, and working westward marked the 
country into sections and quarters, noted streams and mounds, made 
paths and located cabins, naming them. And so it was, treading on the 
Mormons' heels, the first surveyors and map-markers found a trail to 
Council Bluffs and noted is as the "Mormon trail." 

So it is in no sense to commemmorate Mormons, the Mormon travels 
or the Mormon church, but only that there may be remembered the 
movement through Iowa of the tremendous travel to and fro upon the 
route which mere chance identified in name with Mormons, that this 
inspiring occasion is enjoyed and a historic tablet to this beautiful 
monument affixed. 

It was a generation until a railroad tied the Mississippi and Missouri 
rivers. It was the generation for movement to the Pacific coast by 
gold-seekers and the tremendous trains of stock and merchandise that 
followed. It was the generation when people of the states went west 
of the Missouri, the generation of the civil war. Almost the only com- 
munication of that time from Iowa with the west was over the Mormon 
trail across the Missouri river. This made of the Mormon trail the 
last and the greatest highway, in Iowa before interstate commerce by 
rail began. The importance and interest it had to business and history 
is largely obscured from us by the great and tragic events of the civil 
war and excitement of railroad building afterward. From the writings 
of James W. Grimes and others in the papers of that day only do we 
catch its meaning. 

To note by stone and tablet something of the importance of that 
route, to retrieve information of that trail is well worth the serious 



purpose of this group of patriotic women of our state. 

I herewith present a map showing as well as I can on so small a scale 
the exact location of the Mormon and Dragoon Trails. Some of the 
trails from crossing places on the Mississippi and of the Des Moines 
rivers are indicated but are not intended as exact. Names of taverns, 
ferries and abandoned townsites which abound and all except principal 
geographical lines and names are omitted. The Waubonsie Trail tra- 
verses the Mormon Trail in those portions denominated as the Old 
Pland Road and for some miles in Davis and Appanoose countise; 
the Blue Grass Trail from near Chariton in Lucas county to near Afton 
in Union county. The White Pole and River-to-River roads, while 
they do not, as officially mapped, lie upon the old Mormon Trail, yet 
much of the travel along these is diverted to it for portions of the way 
in Pottawattamie county. The Mormon church moved by the course 
indicated by dotted lines through Van Buren, Davis, Appanoose and 
Decatur counties. But in order that better precision may be had 
in ascertaining the actual place the travel passed along at the 
time the land surveys were being made and which the surveyors char- 
acterized as the Mormon Trail, there is hereafter set out in ordinary 
language the locations found in inspecting the route with the authentic 
plats and field notes in hand in July, 1911. 

Starting eastward from near the southeast corner of the city of 
Council Bluffs, in 

POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY 

We pass through Lewis township into Keg Creek township at section 
19, thence eastward through section 22, southeastward into Silver 
Creek township at the northwest corner of section 31 and through sec- 
tion 32, northeastward into Macedonia township in the southern part 
of section 19, curving southward thence northward to the southern 
part of section 22, east through Macedonia village and into Grove 
township to the center of section 20, northeastward into Wright town- 
ship to the southeast corner of section 10, southeastward to the south- 
east corner of section 13 and into 

CASS COUNTY 

At the northwest corner of section 18, Cass township, thence north- 
easterly through Iranistan, easterly through (a branch here diverges 
to the south; rejoins near the northwest corner of section 25) Lewis 
and from the southeast corner of that town southeastwardly into Bear 
Grove township near the northwest corner of section 31, southeast to 
the northwest corner of section 4, Noble township, southeast through 
the village of Lyman to the northwest corner of section 18, Edna town- 
ship, southeastwardly to the middle of section 19, Victoria township, 
thence northeastwardly into 

ADAIR COUNTY 

At the southwest corner of section 7, Washington township, northeast- 
ward to the southeast corner of section 4, eastward through the middle 
of section 2, southeastward to where the east line of section 6, Richland 
township, crosses the Nodaway river eastward curving northward 
thence southward to the southeast corner of section 4; thence east- 
ward curving northward thence southward into the northeast corner of 
section 11, eastward through section 12 and section 7, Orient town- 
ship, southeastward through sections 17 and 21 to the northeast cor- 
ner of section 27 where the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad oc- 
cupies its course, the remainder of the way into 

UNION COUNTY 

On through Spaulding and Lincoln townships into the southwest corner 
of section 29; thence eastwardly to the southwest corner of section 26, 






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southeastward to the southwest corner of section 31, Dodge township, 
thence eastward to the northwest corner of section 1, Union township, 
southeast to the northwest corner of section 7, Jones township, east- 
ward to the cemetery in the north part of section 8, northeastward to 
hte north side of section 3, southeastward to the southeast corner of 
section 12 into 

CLARKE COUNTY 

Near the southwest corner of section 7, Troy township, eastward curv- 
ing northward to the middle of section 7, Ward township, southeast- 
ward through the middle of sections 21, 23 and 34 to the center of 
section 2, Knox township, southeastward into sections 12, 13 and 24, 
eastward through the center of section 19, Green Bay township, south- 
eastward to the center of section 28, northeastward to the center of 
section 19, Franklin township, eastward through the town of Smyrna 
and to the northeast corner of section 13 into 
LUCAS COUNTY 

Near the northwest corner of section 18, Union township, northeast to 
the southwest corner of section 5, eastward to the southwest corner of 
section 6, Warren township, northeastward to the southwest corner of 
section 24, Whitebreast township, eastward into the city of Chariton 
and through its southwest portion to the northwest corner of section 4, 
Benton township, eastward through the town of Russell to the center 
of section 3, Washington township, southeastward to the southeast cor- 
ner of section 24, into 

MONROE COUNTY 

At the northwest corner of section 30, Jackson township, east to sec- 
tion 22, southeastward across the southeast corner of section 31, 
Franklin township, into 

APPANOOSE COUNTY 
At the northw^est corner of section 5, Chariton township, through or 
near the town of Iconium to the northwest corner of section 7, Taylor 
township, to Moravia and southeastward to Unionville, and to the 
southeast corner of section 1, Udell township, into 

DAVIS COUNTY 
At the southwest corner of section 6 in Fox River township where the 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railway follows its course to Drakeville, 
then southeast across section 12, Drakeville township, into section 18, 
Perry township, southeastward across section 24, continuing through 
the town of Troy to the center of section 31, Union township, and into 

VAN BUREN COUNTY 

Near the southwest corner of section 31, Chequest township, eastward 
on or near the township line to the southwest corner of section 32, Van 
Buren township, curving southward across the northeast corner of 
section 5, Des Moines township, thence northeastward through the 
town of Pittsburg, thence eastward through the north part of the 
town of Keosauqua, northeastward through the town of Mount Zion 
and across the northwest corner of section 4, Washington township, 
thence eastward through the middle of section 5, Harrisburg town- 
ship, where it joins the Dragoon Trail, southeastward through the cen- 
ter of section 24, into 

P D 3 6. LEE COUNTY 

Southwestward across the southeast corner of section 19, Cedar town- 
ship, across the northeast corner of section 32, thence eastward to the 
middle of section 34, thence southeastward across sections 2 and 12, 
Harrison township, and the southeast corner of section 18 and through 
the towns of Donnellson and Charleston (in some maps and remem- 
bered by many as the Old Plank Road) to Montrose and to Keokuk. 










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